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Talk:SorryNotSorry/@comment-24435238-20160628190418
.#PousseyWashingtonDeservedBetter How ironic that I need to claim “Black lives matter” at a storyline that portrayed this. More so, failed to portray this. Let me just jump right into this by saying the OITNB writers clearly don’t know what they’re dealing with. They don’t understand that their portrayal of police brutality against blacks that nearly mimicked Eric Garner’s real life death completely failed to identify the victim vs. the perpetrator. Bayley Baxter accidentally killed Poussey. Does that excuse him? No. He shouldn’t even have put her in that position in the first place, and he had the opportunity to get tf off of her before she suffocated to death. But…it was an accident. And because of this, as well as because of Bayley’s cinnamon roll personality and lack of training as a correctional officer, he was classified as the victim and didn’t receive any punishment both on the show, and within the fandom. This mirrors real life in which the white cop goes unpunished for killing a black person. But the differences lie in which Bayley was humanized, sympathized, and victimized. Why? …Because the OITNB failed to mirror the TRUE real-life situations regarding this issues. Had they actually used any bit of common knowledge (I’m not even asking for research right now, just any bit of basic knowledge from what we’ve seen in the media), they would’ve been smart and had any of the NUMEROUS racist COs be the killer. Because that’s what’s real. These cops have NO regard for black lives, hence the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and use racially motivated tactics when dealing with black folk. Bayley was not racist. He wasn’t discriminatory. He wasn’t malicious. He wasn’t the right choice. He wasn’t the right choice. That’s mistake Number 1. The OITNB writers’ room lacks melanin. Despite the show being A+ with its diverse cast, the writers’ room doesn’t reflect that at all. Minus 2 Latinxs and 1 Asian, the OITNB are white. They have no personal experience to draw from, which is weird when they have a lot more characters of colours than white characters. So, really, it isn’t an understatement at all to say “The OITNB writers don’t know what tf they’re talking about.” This is where I go into research. This whole mess could’ve been avoided had they done actual research, consulted with black women, and even gotten black writers when tackling such a controversial issue. Because guess what? They failed. And I can’t stress that enough. The writer for the episodes, Lauren Whatsherlastname, justified Poussey’s death by saying they chose the character that had the most to lose and that had the most promising future when deciding who to kill off. Fun fact, Samira Wiley (Poussey) is dating Lauren in real life. So this must’ve been a real slap in the face to her. But back to her justification. So now, in the hands of white writers, characters of colour are only to be used a social commentary to prop up their “innovative” and “groundbreaking” agenda. No. This wasn’t “groundbreaking”. You know what would be groundbreaking? Giving their character of colour the promising future they should’ve gotten. Instead we’re forced to see what happens in real life poorly portrayed to our favourite characters. And in the wake of #BuryYourGays and the Dead Lesbian Trope and the Orlando incident, I don’t think anyone appreciated this happening to one of the most influential and relatable queer characters on TV. I probably have a lot more to say, but I’ll leave it at this for now. OITNB is officially cancelled.